Program designed to help with new health cooperatives fails

BATON ROUGE- A federal program designed to aid federally created health plans such as the Louisiana Health Cooperative Inc. instead became the final nail in the ailing nonprofit's coffin.

Louisiana Health - taken over by state regulators on Sept. 1 - was one of 23 plans created nationally under the Affordable Care Act to ensure there would be competition among health insurers.

Altogether the co-ops received more than $2.4 billion in low-interest federal loans to get started. Only two have proven to be profitable amid restrictions that experts say have hampered the co-ops' development.

Louisiana Health had lost more than $28 million by the end of 2014, its first year of providing coverage, according to records filed with the state Department of Insurance. The risk-adjustment payment was a death blow.